Norm Matthews

Edit, Actually you could drink in bars in Kansas at age 18 but the only beverage a bar could serve (To anyone) was 3.2 beer. If you wanted a mixed drink, you had to be 21, go to a liquor store, get what you needed, then go home and make it yourself. I am so glad the good ole days are dead and gone.

Bringing back memories. I think the first time I heard of a Mai Tai was when I was in college. I probably read about it in Playboy. Back then the recipe was a secret and the only place that served them was at Trader Vic's. There were no trader Vic's in Kansas. I think there were only a couple and they were on the west coast. I wasn't 21 in any case and that was the legal drinking age back then. Trader Vic's Pacific Island Cookbook (1968) had a chapter on mixed drinks and Mai Tai was not included. Then I got drafted and stationed for Advanced Infantry Training at Fort Lewis. On my 22nd birthday I got a pass to go into Seattle and the first place I went was Trader Vic's and the only thing I ordered was a Mai Tai. Then I went to see a Spaghetti Western with Clint Eastwood.

Yes, all corn chips. Tostitos Cantina thin and crispy Fritos original and Fritos chili cheese. The saltines are there in case the chili needs thickening. It didn't.

That is a jarred & store bought pickled onion added as a garnish.

I thought I'd try a new recipe for chili tonight but ended up adding a lot of the ingredients from my old recipe so I am not sure I can call this one 'new", just a little different.

I was going through the freezer and found some leftover, uncooked Korean spicy pork and kalbi and that was dinner tonight.

Charlie always wants Mac &Cheese with steak. The steaks were in the freezer waiting for an event that didn't happen. We also had squash stuffed with rice, onion, corn, poblano pepper and cheese.

Pan fried bulgogi mandu with rice and kim che. The mandu was in the freezer and I could cook it without taking too much attention away from the football game.

I got some ribeye steaks and invited my sister over for her birthday and she was going to get back to me about time, but she didn't so I cooked them tonight for the two of us. They were really thick so I cooked them sous vide first. We also had potato pancakes and buttered steamed asparagus. At the last minute, Charlie asked for Mac&Cheese so the steak got put in the oven to keep warm and sat there for ten minutes longer than I planned. I should know by now that he will always want that when we have steak. I will remember next time.

Yes.

I saw this Hot Fudge, Brownie, Cheesecake on the internet yesterday and made it. It was breakfast this morning!

We had take out fried chicken for NYE dinner. New Years Day is usually traditional Southern dinner that includes ham hocks but the two stores that I used to rely on for big, meaty hocks now has pork hocks. That is what the call them anyway. They are not cured ham and barely have any pork. They are mostly bone, fat and skin. You could say it has a couple bites of pork if you take small bites. I may find better hocks somewhere else, but this year, I made a ham, sausage and bean soup with collards added in. Charlie is not a fan of black eyed peas but once when I made a dip with them, he liked it so I did that in order to include all the traditional foods that we usually have. We also had cornbread.

Tomorrow is a pot luck dinner at my sister's house with turkey and ham. Today Charlie and I had Christmas eve dinner with a rib roast, potato pancakes, coleslaw and mac & cheese.

Forgive me if this has been addressed here before. I didn't read all of the previous 19 years of posts. I was reading a Fine Cooking recipe for latkes today and have a question. It says to soak the grated potatoes in a bowl of water to save the starch and let it settle to the bottom. After removing the potatoes and drying them, the recipe says "Transfer the potatoes to a medium bowl and using your hands, mix in the onion, egg, 1 tsp. salt, and 1/4 tsp. pepper. Carefully pour off the reserved potato soaking water to get to the white gluey starch on the bottom of the bowl. Transfer the starch to the potato mixture and mix it in with your hands." My question is: Why go to the effort of removing the starch and then putting it back? Why not dry the potatoes without removing the starch, or if there is a good reason for soaking, why not just use potato flour instead of using the wet starch at the bottom of a bowl of water?

@heidih That's the same brand I ended up getting. I also got one of marzipan while I was there. It was in the baking aisle.

@Smithy click on the link at the bottom of this post and it will take you to the recipe.

@jedovaty Well it was either find the almond paste or find "finely ground blanched almond meal" and if I found that, I'd still have to make the paste. The recipe also provided an alternative filling of butter, cinnamon and sugar and I almost used that. I am glad that I found the paste though because it tasted a lot better than the marzipan that Charlie's ex used on her cakes.

The black one has been stored in the basement since I got the other one a little while ago. I got it out today to make cookies while the bread was rising in the other bowl. It has a smaller bowl and is pretty noisy compared to the red one.

I grew up in a Croatian neighborhood in Kansas City (Strawberry Hill) and they have the same holiday bread but call it povitica. PS I once lived in a rental house that had black walnut trees and I decided to make some povitica since the nuts were "free". It took months for those black walnut husks to dry out enough. They have to be removed before you can crack open the shells and that is a messy messy chore. I put them in a gunny sack and whacked then up side the tree and ran over them with my car. Just trying to do it by hand will turn your skin walnut brown until it decides to wear off. I finally got enough nuts meat to make the bread and ugh. I found out I didn't like black walnuts. They have quite a different taste than English walnuts. Another time, my uncle gave me a big bag of pecans and I made some povitica with those and that was wonderful.

Long ago before the internet, I occasionally made a German Christmas dessert called Stollen but stopped when I could not get cardamom any more. I was thinking about making it again and wondered if I could find all the stuff I needed to make it now that I am back in Kansas City. I looked all over for the almond paste. Cassie used to get marzipan somewhere but I could not find it anywhere. Finally I went to a cake and candy bakers supply store way out on the old Santa Fe trail road. The parking lot was full when I got there and it was busy inside. When I finally got to the cash register, the lady told me she didn't have any but Hen House grocery did. That is a place I shop often and it's close. So yesterday I got everything I needed and today it has been snowing since before dawn and will still be snowing by dark so it's a good day for baking. The recipe was for one big or two smaller loaves. I made one big one and that was a mistake. By the time the inside was done, the edges were crunchy but it was still good. Charlie had seconds and it was better than I remembered. Another thing I was thinking about was a cookie jar that got broken a long time ago and so I looked for it on ebay and found it.... so i had to make some cookies to fill it. The jar is full and those are the cookies that won't fit. We will have to eat those right away, I guess. For dinner Charlie called Grub Hub and ordered from an Hawaiian restaurant. We had some pork and chicken plus some Spam grilled with teriyaki and wrapped with rice in some seaweed.

My son brought this home yesterday. He said this isn't a joke but it is still funny. Cereal with no cereal in the box.

More leftovers. Today ham and bean soup with challah bread. Charlie had his with a turkey sandwich. I was at the dentist today and soup was all I was up for...a little ice cream too.

Because Thanksgiving dinner was moved up sooner than I wanted, I was still finishing up at the last minute. I was still making gravy and slicing bread when people started arriving. That is why I did not have time to take any pictures. I brought ham back to the Thanksgiving table after many years absence. My uncle never ate any kind of fowl so we always had some ham along with the turkey. I started serving Heritage ham along with turkey because it is so good. People have started looking forward to it as much as the turkey. This is a "Leftover Ham and Egg Salad" that is Charlie's favorite. I added some ham slices to my sandwich. The following is a description of one of the farms that raises pigs for Heritage Foods. Healthy Heritage Hogs Unlike the overcrowded inhumane conditions of industrially farmed pigs, which makes up 97% of the dry, tasteless pork sold today, White Oak Pastures’ pigs forage on lush pastures and pecan groves, while also enjoying farm fresh eggs, nuts and grains. These accommodations coupled with the mixed heritage breed of Tamworth, Berkshire, and Gloucester Old Spot result in the most astonishingly healthy, full-flavored ham you will ever enjoy. Ham n Egg Salad Ingredients 2 c. Left over baked ham, diced very small 4 hard boiled eggs, chopped 1 c. mayonnaise 1/2 c. chopped celery 1/4 c. chopped sweet onion 1/4 c chopped dried apricots Have used dried apples and or golden raisins. Salt and Pepper to taste

My recipe used to be a lot longer and more complicated too.

I used to marinate it for two or three days but I just serve the hens with sauce poured over it now.